Two and a half weeks ago, famed British conductor Sir Edward Downes and his wife Joan died together at a suicide clinic outside Zürich "under circumstances of their own choosing." Sir Edward was not terminally ill, but his wife was diagnosed with rapidly developing cancer. Together, they decided they did not want to live without each other.

Much of the reporting has been dry, but London’s Evening Standard published powerful articles (here, here, and here) about the couple’s death. It’s very nearly a love story, a Romeo and Juliet of the aged.

As readers know, the MWA anthology The Prosecution Rests contains a story about euthanasia, my own ‘Quality of Mercy‘. The story explores the morality of packaged death but doesn’t express a conclusion, letting readers draw their own opinions.

During the past year, I talked with my friend Dick Stodghill, who has a certain vision about the right to die, the right to choose the time, place, and circumstances of one’s death. Dick is clear: No one should be able to tell another how to control their life– or their death.

I have sharp ideas about assisted suicide but, unusual for me, I don’t vocalize much because I have more questions than answers. Unlike politics, crimes, and other human missteps, death is irreversible. Once it’s done, it can’t be taken back. The laws and people involved must be perfect, and we live in a far-from-perfect world.

I worry about government involvement, particularly a Brave New World society that might sweep away the infirm, the incontinent, and the inconvenient. I am concerned about impatient or even greedy relatives who might want to hurry the process along. I speculate darkly about the motives of some who take part in the act of rushing others over the threshold.

In particular, Jack Kevorkian– Doctor Death– spooked shivers down my spine. He struck me as a bit too eager, too gleeful: grubbing for publicity, running for office, clowning in court in a powdered wig. At least some of his patients, according to reports, were not terminal. I believe his first ‘patient’ was a woman who simply feared she might have Alzheimer’s disease.

Asking Dr. Jack for assistance became tantamount to asking Bernie Madoff to help you invest. I don’t see a lot of difference between Kevorkian and his Thanatron/Mercitron death machines and Dr. Walter Freeman, the man who traveled America in his Lobotomobile, doling out thousands of transorbital lobotomies to treat behaviors as slight as daydreaming and turning on lights during daylight. Just ask Rosemary Kennedy– except you can’t– she was one of his victims.

I do voice an opinion about one other aspect. I hear people say "I don’t want to be a burden to my children."

What the hell are you talking about? What kind of lesson is it for children to equate inconvenience with human life? Until the 1950s when America became mobile, families gathered around and cared for loved ones. Providing for one’s elderly became a shared experience and bonded families. Yes, it’s more difficult when families are scattered and perhaps one child becomes stuck with the responsibility, but it’s part of life. So what if your child has to change your diapers and spoon-feed you? How many years did you do that for your child?

Here I have to give credit to my brother Glen. Rather than wait for a nurse, he picked Mother up in his arms and carried her to the bathroom to take care of her. Glen can be a pain-in-the-ass, but he never once complained about Mom being a burden. So, whatever your position about the debate may be, let’s set this one issue aside.

The Final Analysis

At this moment in time, I know what answer is right for me, but I don’t know what is right for you or Dick Stodghill or anyone else, and perhaps that’s the way it should be. Edward and Joan Downes seemed to have found the right answer for them, but it might not work for others.

Maybe a one-size-fits-all law isn’t an ideal solution. It doesn’t seem right when Florida imprisons an elderly man for helping his wife end her life, and yet I don’t want to see the floodgates open on quick-and-easy euthanasia.

I turn to you, the reader. What are your thoughts? What would be your solutions? What would you want when the time comes?

Note

The route this Evening Standard interview took illustrates the amazing age we live in: The news item arrived on my desk in the United States from a reader in South Africa who found the British article on a Canadian news site about an event that took place in Switzerland. Five countries and three continents later, I’m able to bring it to you.

15 comments

As I mentioned elsewhere, your short story, Quality of Mercy touches this subject very poignantly, and I did read the story of Edward and Joan Downes.

I am a firm believer in the patient’s right to choose. Everyone should have filled out the necessary forms long ago and updated them every two years: health care proxy, living will, and there is another one which I can’t quite remember. And if I decide to pull my own plug who is there to deny me that right? It is the getting help to do so that can be a legal problem without proper and recent paperwork.

I am fortunate enough to have loved ones who understand exactly how I feel on this issue.

As to my kids, since one is an insurance agent and the other an attorney, these issues are not anathema to them so we are able to have the conversation from time to time.

I have no fear of government involvement. That issue has reared it’s head as a distraction from the issue of universal health care.

Terri did an excellent job of expressing my feelings. I would be especially indignant if someone used their own religious beliefs as a reason for me to hold on at all cost.
Having visited too many nursing homes for my liking, and being a mere two weeks from my 84th birthday, this subject sometimes crosses my mind. While a persuasive argument could be made that dignity has never been my strong suit, dignity would prevent me from going along with the idea of being totally dependent upon others. Remaining alive isn’t that important to me.

I have a close friend with MS. She is losing more control over her body month by month. It is very possible that at some point she will not have enough control left to, for example, take an overdose of pills. She is using some of her last energy to campaign for assisted suicide legislation.

Terrie’s right: Her former Lieutenant Governor Betsy McCaughey insisted the present House bill “could be interpreted” to “compel seniors to submit to a counseling session every five years (regarding) alternatives for end-of-life care,” (17 July 2009) and House Republican Leader John Boehner of Ohio said the bill “may start us down a treacherous path toward government-encouraged euthanasia.” (23 July 2009)

Both appear to be stretching a clause that refers not to euthanasia but Medicare-paid counseling regarding extending life under terminal illness and severe brain damage.

I don’t believe in the dignity of life if I’m lying in bed unable to move. Life is precious only if I can live it as I wish. We should have the right to choose how we wish to die. The duty of the government is to insure that if someone else makes the choice for us, it is legitimate.

“I don’t believe in the dignity of life if I’m lying in bed unable to move. Life is precious only if I can live it as I wish. We should have the right to choose how we wish to die.” Yes, I agree with what Louis said completely.

I said before “Euthanasia should be allowed, but only under strict and tightly controlled conditions.” Here are some that I can think of:

Condition No. 1: The patient is terminally ill (and diagnosed to have less than a year or so to live).

This is a subject I find hard because my mother had early onset Ahlzheimer’s (autopsy proved correct diagnosis) and she died at 67 from difficulties after a fall and breaking her hip. We could have tied to a chair because she was a mere wisp of what she’d been and frailty of her bones caused the breakage when she fell. We sisters (3) decided to let her walk as that was the only thing she could remember to do. Thus the fall.

She had no quality of life and was nearing the fetal position as her disease progressed quickly. All patients don’t, hers did. She went from knowing everyone to not knowing us in 3 short years.

We “allowed” her to die in hospice. We watched her die. We held her hand while she died.

To us she was already dead. But her body still lived. Had he put her on life support she might still be here. I don’t know. That disease is not choosy upon whom it strikes and is different for each person it strikes.

Knowing all the above and seeing it are different. I thought it would be oh so easy to watch her go and to let her go.

You know what? It wasn’t. It was the most difficult thing I’ve ever done even knowing deeply it was the correct way in which to handle her “life”.

I know it is devasting to watch someone you love change daily.

I still would not have chosen assisted suicide had the fall and infection and so on. I’d still be visiting her and talking to her as though she knew and understood.

I still wonder if what we did was wrong, but we did it and she died gracefully and without pain.

The husband wife duo, I have a hard time understanding, BUT with that said, I have no problem with them doing what they chose for themselves, to do.

To each his own.

As for national health care, I’m fast approaching the age they’ll just say, here’s a pain pill go home, shut up and just die and get it over with!

Very emotional article, Leigh. For me anyway. I enjoyed reading it and the responses.

Back in my teaching days, I gave a not very successful writing assignment that asked students to defend or counter this statement: There are certain actions that must be available to people but are sometimes taken too lightly. One of my examples was suicide. (The others included abortion, divorce, bankruptcy, and litigation.) Although suicide is both illegal and generally frowned upon, any able-bodied person who really wants to can commit it. Thus, I can’t defend denying assisted suicide to a person (e.g., a quadriplegic) who is not physically able to do the act without help. If assisted suicide were legally available, I believe it would ease the minds of many people who in actual practice would never carry it out but would be comforted by knowing it was available to them.

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